I have been looking at buying a 3 series for a while and came across a SUPPOSEDLY "2001 M3" first off the car is a 4 door. second there are no M badges on the car except for an over sized one (possibly after market/fake) on the trunk

another thing i don't have knowledge about is how the car has a BMW V8 engine and 6 speed transmission, which i'm sure has been swapped in, and runs with no obvious problems.

please forgive me if this is the wrong part of the site to post this. I am new to this forum and all forums in general! any insight on what kind of v8/what car this motor and trans. came from would be much appreciated.

i will try to post pictures tomorrow.

P.S. I would search this topic, but like i said i am new and have no idea on what to even look for

M3s didn't have v8s that year so it wouldn't be any better than a guess for anyone to help you with the information you're looking for - clearly it's a swap in. There were a couple of years (I forget when though - around '97, '98 maybe?) when you could get a 4 door M3 but they never had V8 engines before the E9X body style. You'll just need to contact the owner for this kind of information given that it could be anything. For all you know there could be a Chevy 350 in there. Unless you want to buy that for a fun project car that is for playing only and not something you would rely on you're probably better off finding something that is 100% OEM...